Dragon Seal
by Captain Risu
Summary: The number one dragon criminal disappears after his latest attack and witch-in-training Uraraka may or may not be responsible for it. However, the race to find him isn't only against time. Sinister forces are working from the shadows to raise something that could throw the whole country into disarray. And the missing reptile might be just the right one for the job.


**[A/N: Dedicated to** **Anne (myloveistoblame on tumblr) and Chris for being the driving force behind this fic with their unlimited enthusiasm. I couldn't do this with you! T^T**

 **Also shoutout to everyone who has supported this AU so far. You're all such sweethearts and your words of encouragement meant the world to me. I hope you enjoy the ride~ ^w^]**

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 ** _Chapter 1: The Weather Forecast Didn't Say Anything About Fire Breathing Lizards!_**

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Smoke turned the midnight sky red as the town burned.

Frightened citizens filled the streets, running away from the center of the commotion. Uraraka, however, had to reach it as fast as possible. Something had breached the barrier around Musutafu like it was made of paper. Every detector in the perimeter was down, so Witches were deployed to identify this threat instead. The Leyline channel kept broadcasting this order inside her head alongside with everyone's feedback. Their voices echoed in the rhythm of the pounding in her temples.

 _"Does anyone have a visual?"_

 _"There are people trapped here."_

 _"Someone get help!"_

Pushing back the tears from the headache, Uraraka tried to maneuver in the thickening crowd. Civilians bumped onto her from either side, dragging her backward. Her lungs burned as if she was fighting against a treacherous river current. One misstep and she'd be swept away. Her wand came into focus - the purple quartz letting a brief glow- and she knew. Holding tight with both hands, she whispered the incantation. The wooden staff trembled with a life of its own, pulling her off the ground like a firework. The wind whistled in her ears until she reached the peak of her arc. Only then, when everything quieted down, she dared to crack an eye open.

Whole city blocks had collapsed on the east part of town, leaving behind empty spaces that resembled cauldrons of hot boiled lava. Up there, the tang of burning wood and coal was more prominent too. A low rumble similar to thunder rippled in the air, but gravity took hold of Uraraka again before she could locate its source. With an acrobatic swing midair, she cast a spell to cushion her landing, and her enchanted boots handled the rest of the impact. She broke into a sprint the moment her feet touched the ground.

The remaining citizens had retreated into safety so the stone paved street was deserted. Lampposts leaned over it like weeping willows. Shops had lost parts of their fronts when their parapets collapsed on the sidewalk. Windows had shattered outwards, splaying glass shards all over the slabs. Uraraka sidestepped around the remains with sharp hops. An intense heat cloud washed over her like a heartbeat every couple of seconds. Sweat dripped from under her bangs. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Wheezing, she turned around a corner and froze in her tracks.

There was a dragon in the main plaza, surrounded by flames and piles of debris. He towered over the buildings, easily reaching ten meters in height. His ash-colored scales glistened white under the harsh light. As Uraraka stared petrified, he grabbed the molding around the dome of the clock tower with his muscular front paws. The building groaned under his weight. His leather wings flapped irritated as he tried to get a better grip. Stucco and large chunks of marble crumbled, shedding white dust on the ground.

The dragon sniffed the air, turning his head in either direction. Spikes jutted backward from the lower part of his snout, growing bigger until they formed a crown on the top of his head. Two twisted black horns nested in the midst of it. With an audible snort, he shook his head like a common dog and roared to the heavens. His cry sounded as if a Knight dragged a sword across a shield, or they were sharpening the blade or both.

Uraraka covered her ears, feeling the ground shake. Her heart leaped to her throat and she hoped this was the end of his tantrum.

It was not.

Setting his head right above the clock tower, the dragon opened his maw. The panels of hardened skin on his underside separated, a golden-orange glow coming from the cracks.

Uraraka ducked behind the corner.

A column of fire engulfed the building. Strong winds laced with flames covered every inch of the plaza. Even behind the protection of her hiding spot, the heat was unbearable. When the onslaught died out, she peeked around again.

Only a smoking grilled shell of the tower remained.

Uraraka caught herself shaking. When faced with a destructive force of this magnitude, one's regular first reaction is to run as far away as possible. She wanted to flee, but she couldn't leave him destroying as he pleased. It was her duty as a sworn protector of the realm. Still, this was suicidal. She was only a trainee. There was no way she could take on a dragon by herself. Calling for back up should be her first priority. But the static over the Leylines pierced her still-recovering brain like an arrow.

"Hey! Can anyone hear me?" she asked. Her voice echoed broken, and she stuffed the limp in her throat before continuing. "I found him!"

If anyone heard her, they didn't give any signs. She felt like she talking inside a crowded amphitheater in the midst of a heated debate. Random words that hardly made any sense bounced around her head before the channel went dead. It was safe to assume she was on her own.

 _It won't take long for the others to locate the beast too,_ she thought hopeful. _I can wait._

Another building collapsed in the plaza and something scurried between her feet. It was a couple of rats, their black hides glistening in the dim light. Uraraka stared at them absentminded. Coming from the countryside, rodents were the last thing she would be afraid of. After all, there was a bigger threat to worry about. If only the dragon was the same size, maybe he'd be easier to handle.

Like the crystal sound of a pitching fork, an idea rose up from the depths of her mind. She knew a spell that could do the trick. Of course, she hadn't tried this on a creature that could swallow her whole and had strong resistance to magic. But distracting him until reinforcements arrived was better than being a sitting duck.

Uraraka took a deep breath and ran to the center of the plaza. Skidding on the tiles, she widened her stance and locked eyes on the dragon. His tail trashed impatiently, but he had his back turned. Continuing to search for whatever brought him in this town most likely.

She realized the wand was behind her back again. Her teachers had commented often on this habit for the past couple of months. She was a Witch, not a Knight. Maybe watching Iida while he practiced had been rubbing off on her for real. But at that moment it gave her a much-needed confidence boost.

"Hey!" she shouted. "You big bully!"

As lame as it was, the insult got his attention. One red eye zeroed on her. Cold chills run along the length of her arms. Her heart hammered in her chest like a bird struggling to escape. Sweat pooled inside her gloves.

Despite all that, Uraraka set her jaw and glared back. "Go bother someone your size," she said.

Smoke escaped from his nostrils. The dragon grunted annoyed and turned around, swiping debris and boulders in his wake.

 _This is it,_ Uraraka thought. _I'm going to die._

The realization didn't change anything though. She corrected her hold with an uncanny precision. Wand vertical in an arm's length. The index and middle finger of her free hand parallel to her nose.

The words of the incantation laced thin straps of light in the air with a life of their own. Magic energy crackled all around her like a whip. The first seal appeared under her feet, glowing in the same purple color of the quartz embed on the wand. A gale rushed from below, circling her body like a barrier. Her long side bangs twisted and curled in front of her face, but they didn't break her concentration. Only a slim part of her senses realized something heavy stomped towards her. The wand shook vigorously under her grasp from the channeled magic. Uraraka traced a triangle midair with her free hand, leaving its flickering imprint behind. Her fingertips burned. She flicked her wrist twice and an X shape was cast inside the triangle.

Stones crumbled in her vicinity, and she opened her eyes.

Two rows of sharp white teeth - the size of boulders - separated barely two meters from where she stood. Flames flickered in the back of this cavernous mouth, the air already smelling like rotten eggs.

Uraraka grabbed her wand like a sword, screaming the final words of her spell.

Lightning exploded when the tip smashed the floating symbol.

Fire rushed from the dragon's throat.

The two forces met halfway, the first forcing the later to spread like a fiery dandelion in the air. Parts of the shattered pavement levitated around them. Her ears were ringing with a monotonous tune. Every fiber of her body was on high alert and Uraraka realized with clenched teeth that she hadn't felt more alive.

Soon the spell gained the advantage, ending the stalemate. The dragon dug his nails into the ground, and put more force into his flames to no avail. In the split second the fire died out, he was struck by the spell right inside his maw.

Bright white light engulfed him and the plaza.

Uraraka's hearing was muted all of a sudden.

Somehow she was floating.

Another scream pierced her ears before darkness swallowed her whole.

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Dust and ash had settled in her throat when Uraraka came about. She coughed, turning to the side with a lot more effort than usual. Her whole body felt like it was made of lead and leaving the warm ground sent an unpleasant chill along her back. Voices came from undistinguishable directions all around her, jumbled like in the Leylines earlier, but definitely not inside her head.

Someone brushed aside her side bangs. The fingers were pleasantly cold against her skin and Uraraka raised her head.

Yaoyorozu had kneeled next to her. Even the soot staining her face and dress couldn't erase her regal posture, but her worried expression had managed to smear it just a bit.

"Are you alright?" she asked concerned.

"Yeah."

Her throat itched from the earlier screaming, so the reply came out a lot coarser than usual.

It only deepened the other girl's frown.

"Good grief, she lives!" Hagakure appeared behind Yaoyorozu. The bodysuit under her clothes stood out against the scenery as if a black void had taken human form. "That was really dangerous, Ochako! What were you thinking?!"

Guilt spread its entangled roots inside Uraraka's chest. The earful from the teachers she could handle. Making her friends worry, she could not. Still, she managed to crack a sheepish smile.

"My bad," she said. "I only wanted to keep him busy until you guys came."

"Didn't you hear the announcement? This dragon was Bakugou," Yaoyorozu said, fumbling with the broch holding her hooded hat together. "He is hunted by the crown."

"The price money is insane too!" Hagakure said. "And you faced him all on your own?!"

Uraraka wanted to hide her flushed face, but alas her hands didn't want to cooperate. "I didn' beat him or anythin', right?"

"A crater is what you did."

"Really?"

"Yup."

Yaororozu helped Uraraka sit.

There was still smoke in the sky as the rest of the town continued to burn. Cracks and shattered slabs stretched out from the direction of what remained of the clock tower, leading to a wide hole in the middle of the plaza. Two of the closest buildings had collapsed inside it with the third one in the row barely grasping on the pavement for support.

Knights had positioned themselves on the perimeter of the crater, observing the damage. A few steps to the side, Ms. Midnight had cornered one of them, a man with spiky grey hair wearing heavy red armor. Their supervisor didn't raise her voice, but her gestures had an intensity that was hard to miss.

"Professor is trying to convince them that the dragon did this," Yaoyorozu said. "I'm not sure they are going to believe her though."

"Honestly…" Hagakure tapped the pole of her wand. "What spell _did_ you use?"

Uraraka furrowed her brows. Only flashes of the scene came back to her. The heat. The rumbling of the street as it collapsed. Someone screaming in pain. Then the film reel of her memory focused on the symbol of her seal.

"I did Transform B. You know the…" Her voice trailed as she traced the triangle with the X shape inside. It flickered like purple smoke for a few seconds before it vanished.

"We barely learned that last week!" Hagakure said.

"It was a good idea to try a weakening spell," Yaoyorozu said. "However this isn't the right seal."

A cold feeling washed over Uraraka, tightening her throat and freezing her to the core. "It isn'?" she croaked.

"It looks more like this." Yaoyorozu traced one big triangle with a smaller one inside. The symbol glowed reddish midair before it transformed into Uraraka's seal. "They are pretty similar. Maybe your hand slipped?"

Her gut told her she had seen this specific seal somewhere. In a book maybe, but it was possible that she remembered wrong. After all, she was high on adrenaline and fear when she cast it.

"What did it do then?" Hagakure asked. "We saw him fly away in a hurry."

"Unfortunately I'm not sure," Yaoyorozu said.

Her voice seemed to be coming from miles away though, as some sort of understanding flashed inside Uraraka's head.

Bakugou was the one screaming.

She was sure it wasn't her and there wasn't anyone besides them back then. It was a wild guess, but the more she tried to remember that scream, the more it faded away into something softer. More human-like.

"This is still a transformation spell, right?" she asked. "Would it really work on a dragon?"

"I'm certain," Yaoyorozu said with a nod. "No matter how resistant they are to magic, he would still be affected in some way." Stray locks of her black hair swished from the sudden gale that rushed into the plaza. "Is something troubling you, Ochako?"

Uraraka stared at the wand in her lap. The flames around them were reflected on every plane of the crystal as if it had absorbed them.

"I think I turned him into a human," she said.

Her grave announcement was greeted with silence as another rumble rippled in the air. At that moment she wasn't sure if indeed a storm was coming or it was only the sound of a distant roar.

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 **[A/N: First multi-chap fic I'm actually uploading.**

 **Woohoo~**

 **I admit it was pretty nerve-wracking writing this chapter because I wanted it to be perfect (since I've hyped people for this AU so much). Well, you guys will be the ones to judge that. I rest assured that I tried my best and who knows. By the time the whole story is done, I might have learned something new. ^w^**

 **The chapter title was inspired by Rick Riordan's titles. I was reading his Norse God series when I first wrote it and thought "Why not try something similar in this story". So expect the rest to be as ridiculous. XD**

 **Actually, the summary for the next chapter (with Blasty's POV) is: " _Transformations are as painful as they sound. But at least you get the chance to make friends with the locals. Or maybe not."_ I'm open to suggestions for the titles, so if you have any ideas or just wanna chat, feel free to shoot me a message on my Tumblr (lupizora on tumblr).**

 **Btw this story is going to be updated once a month! Unfortunately, I have too many responsibilities to update it faster. ^^" I hope you can understand. *bows***

 **See ya on March 10th!]**


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